FULL CIRCLE

She glanced back at nature’s tapestry,

that’s what her mom called this place.

All she saw were barren fields

and dilapidated electric poles.

She daydreamed of walking

those old rusted wires

all the way to some concrete

circus, slacklining like a ballerina

on a tightrope. Her mother warned

her about wasting time. Big city

dreams are like candles in the sky,

she’d say, they’ll dim over time.

Still, possibilities impregnated

her hopes. As the bus pulled

away from her childhood,

she felt free, unobstructed.

Her curious eyes soon blended

into a sea of lights where the voices

of empty counselors mutually

became blended with her own.

And hours passed into days

and days into years,

and soon it seemed a lifetime –

an epoch of lost ambitions.

Her milk and honey imaginings

became stained by her own blood.

The madness of life had splintered

her soul and Hope’s labor

pains, stillborn.

 

* * *

 

She reminisced in the foul-smelling

metal box before it stopped. Decades

ago she called this place home.

The barren fields once promised

to yield fruit too – ghosts of dead

dreams remained. Still,

there was comfort in simplicity,

she thought. Retrospective.

Free and unobstructed.